Monthly review: May 2025

Jun 1, 2025| monthly, review

May 2025: 🌧️🎨📰🚴🌼🐱🐸📰🦷🧵🚂🔥🐕🐒🏰🔥💡👗♻️🎮🌧️🎣🎪🏺💻🍦🎢☕🍓🛝🧵

Text from sketch

May 2025: Stardew Valley, s'mores, sewing

🌧️ rainy day writing
🎨 painting pottery
📰 newsletter training
🚴 Bike Brigade
🌼 dandelions
🐱 cat food delivery
🐸 toad day
📰 newsletter
🦷 dental cleaning
🧵 sewing
🚂 trackless train
🔥 s'mores
🐕 dogs in Minecraft
🐒 monkey bars, fashion
🏰 at the castle playground
🔥 s'mores and popsicles
💡 W-'s bike light
👗 clothes, sewing
♻️ compost
🎮 Stardew Valley
🌧️ More Stardew, rainy day
🎣 Trout derby - Stardew Valley
🎪 silo, fair - Stardew Valley
🏺 pottery wheel, ankle hurts
💻 laptop refresh
🍦 ice cream
🎢 whee!
☕ peppermint tea, drizzle
🍓 farmers market strawberries
🛝 market playground
🧵 sewing

2025-05-31-06

Last month, I wrote:

In May, I want to add more plants to our outdoor garden, sew some swimwear for A+ and me, and see about volunteering for Bike Brigade.

I volunteered to help with Bike Brigade's e-mail newsletter, since they were looking for someone to take over from another volunteer and it might be a good way to build real-life community. I like the cause: volunteer cyclists connecting food banks with people who need those groceries delivered. W-'s been volunteering for that for a while, and A+ and I also did a couple of deliveries, and it's nice to see her enjoy helping out. I also listened to a virtual panel about bikes and social justice, and I shared my sketchnotes afterwards. I'm glad there are people thinking about these issues, and I'm also glad that there are small, concrete, on-the-ground ways that we can help.

We made more progress through the Toronto District School Board's gifted identification process, but I think we're going to opt for a regular class in the public virtual school instead of the gifted placement in an in-person school. A+ gets bored in class, but I think she'll enjoy having the extra opportunities to play with her friends and explore ideas, and she also appreciates the way she can read and sing in the middle of class. (Hooray for the mute button!)

A+ took a pottery painting class and another pottery wheel class at Clay With Me. This time she did a 2-hour wheel workshop, and the teacher was able to help her with a couple of pieces. We've been using the bowls we made in the previous class. It's nice to have hand-made things. This seems to be an ongoing interest, so we're going to experiment with a pottery-related summer camp. I found one that lets me register for a week-long afternoon camp that focuses on the pottery wheel. We like to keep our time pretty flexible, so this is our first experiment with a camp. I think it'll be great to be able to build momentum and learn from a teacher with more experience, using equipment that we don't have access to at home. The camp description says kids will learn how to add attachments and other decorations to their work, so that could be pretty cool.

I experimented with bringing a portable butane stove to the park. We were able to make s'mores on two separate occasions without setting anyone on fire, hooray! It was a good experience. The kids had fun.

On nice days when we didn't have any playdates planned, we I went on bike adventures. We checked out the flower event in Yorkville. We also explored the St. James Park playground, which was included in the recent Doors Open event. A+ liked the tall slide there. We also went to the Art Gallery of Ontario so that she could work on her Group of 7 art assignment while looking at the actual paintings. She picked Figure with Rays of Light by Lauren Harris.

There were quite a few rainy days. We got a lot of sewing done. A+'s getting better at sewing simple seams, and she can stop the machine when things sound weird. We made a fancy skirt with an embroidered mesh layer over satin, a couple of skorts made of spandex so that she can wear it into the splash pad or even the swimming pool, a swim set, and a few tops.

Rainy days were also good for playing together. A+ was curious about playing a farming game, so we started playing Stardew Valley, and we all got into it quite a fair bit. A+ likes collecting eggs, cooking food, and building friendships. I enjoy farming and mining. It's a lot of fun, especially when we play co-op. Even W-'s gotten into it on his phone. This could be a fun way to learn more about life and parenting. Having my own solo farm is also nice, too. It helps me be more patient when we play in co-op because I know I have a different space where I can try things out. It does mean I get tempted to stay up late. I can definitely see the impact of this new interest on my time graph and sleep totals, but that's fine. It's good to ride the wave of our interests, especially when we can do it together.

In our real-life garden, the radishes have been very happy, and other seeds have sprouted too. The mini roses, dahlias, and strawberries have come back, and so has a dianthus. The daffodils are done with their blooms. Last year's compost turned out pretty nicely, and I've started turning this year's trimmings into compost. I love letting A+ plant seeds wherever she likes, and I've been enjoying learning how to identify those sprouts as well as other ones that turn up in our garden.

A+'s been enjoying the sourdough rye from the Dufferin Grove farmers market, so I revived the sourdough starter we got from a trip many years ago, which we'd revived in 2020 or so and then re-dehydrated. I thought I got it to be pretty active again, but I haven't quite figured out baking a proper loaf yet. On the other hand, W- has been on a roll (hah) with all the breads and bagels he's been baking. I put the starter in the fridge for a week because we had lots of potato-rosemary bread in the house, and now I think the starter needs a few days of waking up again. Oh well, flour is tuition for learning how to bake. Fortunately, I've discovered I like sourdough discard pancakes, so at least there's a way to deal with the excess.

In June, I'd like to take A+ on a few more informal field trips during the school week, to take advantage of places before they get swamped by everyone else on summer break. Maybe Centreville, and maybe strawberry-picking like last year. Her friends will probably be more available for playdates too, so that'll be a nice shift in our routines. I'm looking forward to more cooking and sewing and gardening and pottery. We like making things together and enjoying them together. As the days get longer and the weather warms, I shift: less computer time, more outside time. This is good. I'm looking forward to exploring more of the city by bike, now that we know we can make it out to playgrounds on the other side of town. It's the season for it!

Blog posts

Sketches

Time

Category	Previous month %	This month %	Diff %	h/wk	Diff h/wk
A+	30.7	33.9	3.2	58.9	5.4
Unpaid work	4.9	5.7	0.8	9.8	1.3
Discretionary - Play	1.6	1.3	-0.3	2.2	-0.5
Discretionary - Family	0.5	0.2	-0.3	0.3	-0.5
Business	2.4	2.0	-0.4	3.5	-0.6
Sleep	32.2	31.3	-1.0	54.3	-1.6
Personal	11.6	10.7	-1.0	18.5	-1.6
Discretionary - Productive	16.1	9.9	-6.2	17.2	-10.4

I've been staying up playing Stardew Valley. =)

Related: May review in 2023, 2021, 2020, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2010

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You can e-mail me at sacha@sachachua.com.